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Expeditions

Photo by: Alexander Ryabenky

The Russian Geographical Society has always paid special attention to the organization of expeditions. During the Imperial period it was the main activity of the Society. Expeditions were often initiated by the central government and interested agencies. There were expeditions equipped at the initiative of individual patrons. However, a lot of expeditions were initiated by the Society itself.

During the World War II, members of the Society developed hundreds of topographic, landscape, military geographical and meteorological maps, including detailed maps of Berlin and maps of the freezing of Lake Ladoga, which allowed making the "Road of life" and "Cable of life". In the second half of the XX century, the main focus of the Society's work was on theoretical research. However, its members participated in major geographical discoveries, the most significant being discovery of subglacial lake Vostok in Antarctica.

Since the extraordinary XIII Congress in 2009, the number of expeditions organized by the Society has been growing rapidly. The multi-year project on the Arctic cleaning up, five seasons of the Kyzyl-Kuragino archeological expedition, expeditions to the Novosibirsk Ilands and to Lake Baikal, a series of studies to search and survey sunken ships and many other projects. Even more expeditions are organized by regional offices.

Today the Russian Geographical Society organizes and supports such expeditions as the Arctic Floating University, the "Hogland" expedition, "Secrets of ancient artists of Siberia", "Salvation of archaeological monuments at the bottom of the Sayan Cea", "Akra, the ancient city of Bosporus", Kostenkov expedition, Tunnug mound expedition and many others.